which time they had seven hundred sixty-nine thousand three hundred fifty-three horn cattle, ninety-four thousand nine hundred eighty-three horses, and two hundred twenty-one thousand five hundred thirty-seven sheep.

The erection of the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata led to the establishment of the government at Buenos Ayres, and promoted the prosperity of that city, and all the provinces on the La Plata, and west of the Andes. This measure was followed by one equally liberal and enlightened in 1778, which in a great degree removed the restrictions on commerce, and opened a free trade with the northern country and the interior of Peru. From this period Buenos Ayres began to acquire that importance and rank which it is entitled to maintain, from its valuable position for commerce, and its rich interior country. Its trade has rapidly increased, and the general commerce of the La Plata. It was promoted by a royal ordinance, adopted in 1794, permitting salted meat and tallow to be exported to Spain, and the other colonies, free of duty.

At so early a period as the year 1511 Ferdinand established a tribunal for conducting the affairs of his American settlements, called the Council of the Indies; and in 1524 it was new modelled and improved by Charles V. It possessed jurisdiction over every department of government in Spanish America; framed the laws and regulations respecting the colonies; made all the appointments for America reserved to the crown; and all officers, from the viceroys to the lowest, were accountable to the Council of the Indies for their official conduct. The king was always supposed to be present in this council, and its meetings were held where he resided. No law, relative to American affairs, could be adopted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the council. All appeals from the decisions of the highest tribunals in America, the Audiencia, or Court of Audience, were made to the Council of the Indies.

The colonial system of Spain over her American dominions was founded on the principle that these dominions were vested in the crown, not in the nation; which was assumed on no better authority than the bull of Pope Alexander VI., bestowing on Ferdinand and Isabella all the countries which they might discover west of a given latitude. Hence the Spanish possessions in America were regarded as the personal property of the sovereign. The authority of the original adventurers, commanders, and governors, by whom the country was discovered and subjected to the dominion of Spain, was constituted by, and they were accountable to, the king, and removable by him at pleasure. All grants of lands were made by the sovereign, and if they failed from any cause, they reverted to the crown again. All political VOL. I.

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and civil power centered in the king, and was executed by such persons, and in such manner, as the will of the sovereign might suggest, wholly independent, not only of the colonies, but of the Spanish nation. The only civil privilege allowed to the colonists was strictly municipal, and confined to the regulation of their interior police, and commerce in the cities and towns, for which purpose they made their own local regulations or laws, and appointed town and city magistrates. But this single ray of liberty must of necessity be tolerated, and has never been extinct in the most despotic states. The Spanish American governments were not merely despotic like those of Russia or Turkey, but they were a more dangerous kind of despotism, as the absolute power of the sovereign was not exercised by himself, but by deputy.

At first, as has been stated, the dominions of the Spanish crown in the new world were divided, for the purpose of government, into two great divisions or viceroyalties, New Spain and Peru. Afterward, as the country became more settled, the viceroyalty of Santa Fe de Bogota was created, composed of the kingdoms of New Granada, Terra Firma, and the province of Quito, and still later that of Rio de la Plata. A deputy or viceroy was appointed to preside over each of these governments, who was the representative of his sovereign, and possessed all his prerogatives within his jurisdiction. His authority was as supreme as that of his sovereign over every department of government, civil, military, and criminal. He appointed most of the important officers of his government, and supplied the vacancies occasioned by death of those appointed by the crown. His court was formed on the model of that of Madrid, and displayed an equal and often superior degree of magnificence and state. He maintained horse and foot guards, a regular household establishment, and all the ensigns and trappings of royalty. His government was formed on the same model as that of Spain, and the tribunals that assisted in its administration were similar to those of the parent country; the appointments to which were sometimes made by the viceroy, and at others by the king, but all were subject to the deputy's authority, and amenable to his jurisdiction. The administration of justice was intrusted to tribunals called Audiences, formed on the model of the Spanish court of chancery. One of these courts was established in every province, and consisted of a number of judges, proportioned to its extent, and the business to be done; they had jurisdiction over both civil and criminal causes. The viceroy was prohibited from interfering with the decisions of these judicial tribunals, and in some instances they could bring his regulations under their review, and present remonstrances, or carry the matter before the king and the Council of the Indies, which was the only particular

in which there was any intermediate power between him and the people subject to his authority. On the death of a viceroy the supreme power vested in the court of audience, and the senior judge, assisted by his associates, exercised all the functions of the vacant office. In addition to the Council of the Indies, in which was reposed the supreme power, as to the civil, ecclesiastical, military, and commercial affairs of America, there was established, as early as 1501, a board of trade at Seville, called Casa de la Contraction. It took cognizance of whatever related to the commercial intercourse with America, regulated the export and import cargoes and the inspection, the freights of the ships, and the time of the sailing of the fleets, and decided judicially on all matters, both civil and criminal, growing out of the commercial transactions between Spain and her American possessions. The doings and decisions of this board might be reviewed by the Council of the Indies.

The

The fundamental principles of the Spanish colonial system were different from those of Great Britain, as it respected its American dominions; although this difference will be found on examination to depend almost entirely on the different constitutions of the two countries. Great Britain, as well as Spain, regarded the countries in America, discovered by her subjects, as belonging to the crown, rather than to the nation, and all grants and patents were made by the king, without the concurrence of parliament; and the rights and powers of the grantees in the proprietary governments, were also created by the crown. charter governments were likewise established by the crown, and the rights and privileges allowed to the colonists, and the prerogatives reserved to the king, were dictated by the will of the sovereign. The authority of parliament, as the organ of the nation, over the colonies, does not at first appear to have been exercised, and although this was afterward attempted, it was never fully allowed or acquiesced in by the colonies. It was the exercise of this authority that led to the difficulties between the parent state and its colonies, which resulted in a separation. In the colonial governments established by Britain in America, very important civil privileges were allowed to the colonists, but their rights were not equal to those of English subjects at home, and the difference was to the same extent as the authority exercised over them by parliament; the prerogatives of the sovereign being at least as great, as respected his colonial subjects, as at home. The Spanish American colonies possessed no political privileges; their only civil rights were purely municipal; the authority of the crown was absolute in the colonial governments, but scarcely more so than it was in the parent state, and it could hardly have been expected that subjects in distant colonies would have been

allowed privileges which were not enjoyed by those at home. As it respects constitutional or political rights, the Spanish colonists enjoyed essentially the same as the subjects of Old Spain, yet the exercise of the power of the sovereign being by deputy, and at a great distance, it was much more oppressive, and exposed to greater abuses. As it respects the equality of privileges, between the inhabitants of the colonies and those of the parent country, the Spanish colonists stood on a better footing than the English. If the colonies were absolutely and entirely subject to the government of the parent state, it was not, perhaps, material to them, whether this governing power resided in the crown, or jointly in the crown and the nation. In either case they were slaves.

But the different constitutions of the two nations occasioned a corresponding difference in the government of their colonies. The power of the sovereign in Spain being absolute, the same authority was exercised over his dominions in America; but the authority of the king of England being limited, and the government a mixed one, in which the people by their representatives participated, similar systems were established in the British dominions in the new world. In all their colonies the representative principle was introduced, and local legislatures were established, which exercised the ordinary powers of legislation, the executive power remaining in the sovereign, which he exercised in some of the colonies by deputy, in others granted it to proprietors; and in some of the minor colonies the executive power was exercised by governors chosen by the people, and the judicial power by judges appointed by the governors, or colonial assemblies. Still, however, the king, and ultimately the nation, or parliament, claimed an undefined and undefinable sovereignty over the colonies, where he did not exercise the executive power; also over those where proprietary governments were established. The fundamental principle of the British colonial system was, that the colonies were subordinate states, and that the parent country possessed the right of sovereignty over them; but whether this sovereign power resided in the king, or in parliament, representing the nation, or how it was to be exercised, does not appear to have been determined. Legislation, when unrestrained, constitutes the sovereign power in every state. But while Britain claimed this power over her colonies, she did not, until a late period, presume to legislate for them, further than to regulate. their foreign commerce, and a few prohibitory acts respecting manufactures. The sovereignty of Great Britain, whether considered as residing in the king or the nation, was rather negative than positive, as it was never pretended, by the most ardent advocates for the prerogatives of the mother country, that she should exercise for the colonies the general powers of legislation. Nei

ther the nature nor extent of this negative authority, nor the manner of its exercise, was ever defined, either conventionally or by the practice of the government. The British colonial system was complex, vague, and inconsistent with itself, and tended inevitaply to one of two results: the establishment of the power of the parent state to legislate for its colonies "in all cases whatsoever," or their entire independence; happily for the Americans and the world, the latter occurred.

The Spanish colonial system was altogether more simple; as there was no intermediate powers between the sovereign and the people at home, there was no necessity for any in the colonies; the sovereign power, so far as the theory of government was concerned, was the same in America as in Spain; it resided in the king in both, and in both was absolute. Spanish America was originally considered as a kingdom independent in itself, and united to Spain only by both countries being under the government of one king. By the laws of the Indies, all acts relating to the conquest of America were expunged, and it was formally united to the crown of Castile by Charles V. in 1519, and confirmed by several of his successors. It is said by Baron Humboldt that the kings of Spain, by assuming the title of king of the Indies, have considered their possessions in America rather as integral parts of the Spanish monarchy, dependent on the crown of Castile, than as colonics, in the sense in which that word has been understood by the commercial nations of Europe since the sixteenth century.*

But the colonies, both of Britain and Spain, were essentially different from those of the ancients, and established on new principles. The distant settlements of the Greeks were rather migrations than colonies, similar to the swarms of barbarians from the north which settled in the south of Europe. The parent state not expecting to derive any advantage from its colonies, did not attempt to maintain any authority over them; and the only connexion between them was that arising from their having a common origin. The colonies of the Romans were military detachments, stationed in conquered provinces to keep them in subjection, in which case the authority of the mother country was maintained over them, and the province, which continued dependent. The discovery of America, and the countries beyond the Cape of Good Hope, gave rise to a new system of colonizing, the object of which was to promote the commerce and prosperity of the parent nation.

Whatever difference there may have been in the principles on which the colonies of Spain and those of Great Britain were Political Essay on New Spain.